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More About the Author
Brian K. Vaughan has previously written episodes of Swamp Thing and The Hood mini-series. His current work includes Runaways and Y: The Last Man.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris continue to impress with the third trade paperback of the Ex Machina series. In this installment, a new hero emerges in New York City calling itself the Automaton. This being claims to have been made by Mayor Hundred when he called himself The Great Machine. However, there is more at work here than there seems.
The second half of the volume deals with Mayor Mitchell Hundred heading west to visit his mother as she finds herself in a spot of trouble. This storyline is a bit more enjoyable for me as it gives us some insight into Mitchell's upbringing and his relationship with his mother.
While I greatly enjoyed Fact vs. Fiction, the stories did not compare to the first two volumes of this series. However, as I found those collections stellar in execution, perhaps that is only to be expected.
I will say this, while Vaughan's stories are just a bit under whelming compared to his usual outstanding work, the artwork of Tony Harris more than makes up for it. Harris is a master of his medium, and while he certainly knows how to draw superheroes, it is his attention to detail in clothing and facial expression on normal, everyday people that amazes me. You must remember, Ex Machina is more political drama than superhero adventure, and so therefore the artist must be especially talented to keep readers coming back for more. Harris fits the bill and then some.
So, while I don't think Fact vs. Fiction was as good as The First Hundred Days or Tag, I certainly think it is still better than much of what's on the market. I cannot recommend Vaughan and Harris' Ex Machina highly enough.
By the way, is it me, or does Mitchell's friend Ray look suspiciously like one mild mannered news reporter?
~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant
The second half of the volume deals with Mayor Mitchell Hundred heading west to visit his mother as she finds herself in a spot of trouble. This storyline is a bit more enjoyable for me as it gives us some insight into Mitchell's upbringing and his relationship with his mother.
While I greatly enjoyed Fact vs. Fiction, the stories did not compare to the first two volumes of this series. However, as I found those collections stellar in execution, perhaps that is only to be expected.
I will say this, while Vaughan's stories are just a bit under whelming compared to his usual outstanding work, the artwork of Tony Harris more than makes up for it. Harris is a master of his medium, and while he certainly knows how to draw superheroes, it is his attention to detail in clothing and facial expression on normal, everyday people that amazes me. You must remember, Ex Machina is more political drama than superhero adventure, and so therefore the artist must be especially talented to keep readers coming back for more. Harris fits the bill and then some.
So, while I don't think Fact vs. Fiction was as good as The First Hundred Days or Tag, I certainly think it is still better than much of what's on the market. I cannot recommend Vaughan and Harris' Ex Machina highly enough.
By the way, is it me, or does Mitchell's friend Ray look suspiciously like one mild mannered news reporter?
~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In Brian K. Vaughan's third trade paperback of his excellent sci-fi/political series, Ex Machina, Mayor Mitchel Hundred participates in something most Americans try to avoid like the plague: jury duty. Hundred is upset that, due to a technicality from when he was the Great Machine, someone that he put behind bars is going free. After receiving some advice from a friend of his (who is also an attorney), he decides that he must "help the system if he wants the system to help him", and when he is selected for jury duty, he decides to go through with it. Meanwhile, a new vigilante, calling itself Automaton, is roaming the streets helping people and claiming that it was built by the Great Machine. If that wasn't bad enough, a hostage situation occurs while Hundred is deliberating with the rest of the jury. In the second story-arc, Hundred visits his mother who reveals a huge truth from his past. When he asks her why she lied to him for so many years, she replies that everyone lies at some point for various reasons. Later, Hundred is lied to by some machines that he is communicating with, which rattles him with the revelation that his mother was right; EVERYTHING lies at some point.
As usual, Vaughan's writing continues to be superb and Tony Harris' art is great. The story arcs in Fact v. Fiction are entertaining, and some previously hinted-at plotlines are once again referenced, and we also see glimpses of other possible plotlines to come. Ex Machina seems to keep getting better as the issues go on.
As usual, Vaughan's writing continues to be superb and Tony Harris' art is great. The story arcs in Fact v. Fiction are entertaining, and some previously hinted-at plotlines are once again referenced, and we also see glimpses of other possible plotlines to come. Ex Machina seems to keep getting better as the issues go on.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The Ex Machina series frustrates me because it is such a great high concept, with so much promise. The art is interesting, drawn in a realistic style that feels cinematic, almost like a movie storyboard. The art is very "literal" in this respect, without any of the impressionistic or surreal aspect of recent comics. The writing by Brian Vaughan is good when it comes to plot and character, but weak when it comes to dialogue. Somebody please tell him that old ladies do not talk with the same profane slang as 22 year-old men! The dialogue in all of his work is edgy, profane, and cool, but does nothing to distinguish the characters from each other. In "Y the last man" this sin was forgivable because there was no wide variety of characters anyway - but in Ex Machina it only serves to make the whole series feel like a seventeen-year-old male fantasy of what life would be like as a mayor of NYC with superpowers. Maybe this is the point, and I'm missing the joke. But Vaughan's attempts to address political and social issues make me think otherwise.
A decent book, with cool art, not the best out there.
A decent book, with cool art, not the best out there.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Further developments in the life of Mayor Mitchell Hundred
The key developments in the stories collected in this edition are not those of the Mayor serving jury duty (frankly, I would think a Mayor's candidacy for the jury would be... Read more
Published on July 14, 2009 by James L. Jackson
Nice Collection With a Different Structure
There is a trend in modern comics that I've really come to like. Around the third or fourth collection, a lot of regularly arc-oriented comics hit readers with a few shorter... Read more
Published on September 16, 2008 by Pat Shand
Political intrigue with superpowers
For those who've grown beyond "Hulk smash" and "With great power comes great responsibility" comes ex-machina; an alternate history story about a NYC mayor who happens to to be... Read more
Published on July 13, 2008 by Scott Baker
Not bad.
Brian K. Vaughan, Ex Machina: Fact v. Fiction (Wildstorm, 2006)
Mitchell Hundred keeps trying to run New York City his way, and people keep wanting him to stop. Read more
Mitchell Hundred keeps trying to run New York City his way, and people keep wanting him to stop. Read more
Published on May 30, 2008 by Robert P. Beveridge
Does Not Disappoint
The third volume of Ex Machini is consistent with the first three. The hostage situation was extremely intriguing, but the whole thing about Hundred and his mother was a little... Read more
Published on January 6, 2008 by Paul Polonskiy
More development in a good comic
Despite its slight super-hero flavor, Ex Machina sustains a fairly believable story line - NYC's new mayor, an ex-engineer, in way over his head and trying to apply rational logic... Read more
Published on September 8, 2007 by wiredweird
Graphic SF Reader
Mayor Hundred is getting pretty stressed about doing this whole running a huge city thing. First, the weather has turned very bad, which an extremely bad storm leaving the city... Read more
Published on September 3, 2007 by Blue Tyson
The Likable Unlikely Premise
In the twenty plus years I've collected comics the writing has improved by leaps and bounds. The likes of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman have not only pushed the... Read more
Published on June 27, 2007 by David R. Sanderson
Trial and Error
The third Ex Machina graphic novel unfortunately trots out the tired old story of an imposter of the Great Machine running around New York. Read more
Published on February 25, 2007 by Tufnel1780
fact:
vaughan is the world's biggest poseur and the worst writer in the history of the english language
Published on December 7, 2006 by mark twain
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